How to Get Blurry Background in Photograph

How to get blurry background in photograph to easily make it look more professional, artistic and isolate the subject from a busy background? Here are tips. It is not unusual for a picture with a good subject to wish to keep in focus and the background blurred which instinctively makes the photograph more beautiful than a picture that frames the same scene while keeping all in focus (this is where the background is not actively contributes to the picture). Normally we ask How to Not get blurry photograph, but for certain Genre; we ask How to get blurry background in photograph!

How to Get Blurry Background in Photograph : Introduction

Besides these aspects, the blurred background and foreground helps to create better pictures in several ways, including:

Helps to isolate the subject in focus, thanks to a blurred background

Help to focus the attention on the main subject (think the example of portraits)

Allows you to hide a ugly and busy background, when you can not change the perspective

Leads the viewer’s eye inside the photography, especially when the elements closest to the viewer are blurred (take for example the close up shot of a page on which a pen is writing and where the written text is blurred )

Can add a sense of mystery

Light sources becomes blurry and can take the form of circles, ovals or polygons that create a background often very pleasant. This is bokeh.

The bokeh become obvious in the presence of a shallow depth of field. We talked about the depth of field in the article about the opening. There are physical laws that allow you to calculate the depth of field according to different parameters. For now, we just need to know that the factors that most contribute to introduce and control the blur in a photo are four :

Wider opening

Long focal length

Distance of objective reduced by the subject, large distance of the subject from the background.

These factors obviously interactive. For example, if we use a wide opening, but the distance between the lens and all of the subject in background is the same, we will have no portion of the photo blurry.

How to Get Blurry Background in Photograph : Opening

The values ??of aperture that we have to use to get the blurred go down to f4 : lower the value, the greater the portion of the photograph will be blurred (because the depth of field will be less). With lower values, less than f2, it may happen that a large part of the picture may be blurred. For example, in a portrait shot from very close with f value around f1.8, you might have an eye in focus the other not, depending on the angle from you shoot. In these cases, you need to be very careful where you place your point of focus, so as to correctly highlight the subject of the photo. As we have seen in the article on focal length and aperture (please search in our website using the search box), the maximum aperture accessible from a zoom lens is equal to f2.8. To go lower you must purchase a fixed focal length lens. At the same focal length, lenses with larger aperture are usually more expensive.

Role of Focal Length

If you are using focal lengths of less than 70 mm, unless you take from very short distances (a few tens of centimeters) from the subject, it will be difficult to introduce the fuzziness in our photographs. As you progress beyond 70 mm focal length, especially when you reach 200 mm, 300 mm or more, it will always be easier to get a blurred background. For example, sports photographers use fixed focal length lens of 300 mm to 400 mm, which allow them to isolate perfectly the athletes while being several meters away.

Distance from the subject and distance of the subject from the background

These two distances interact with each other determining how much of the scene will be blurred. More the point of focus is close to the target, more likely the background will be blurred. But, if the background is of short distance from the subject, it will be blurred only if the opening is very wide. We will have more choices for the values ??of aperture and focal length depending on the relative positions. As we move away, if we want to get a good focus, we will be forced to use focal length of higher values and aperture values ??of lower.

It is essential to know exactly what are the opportunities your equipment provides, always try to control the blurriness in your photos, without having to go to trial. Taking into account the factors described above you can do the exercises, experiments that provide us with this knowledge. If we are in the house, we can use the small objects, such as the ornaments and try to photograph our varying the distance of the object in focus, the distance between it and the rest of the objects, varying the opening and focal length. Comparing the various photographs and knowing how they were taken, we can get used to predict in every situation how much of the picture will be blurred. The same exercise can be repeated at outdoors, taking care to find the right shots.

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About Abhishek Ghosh

Abhishek Ghosh is an Orthopedic Surgeon, Inventor with 216 Patents, Current editor of The Customize Windows Media Group. You can follow and know more about Dr. Abhishek Ghosh on Google Plus and follow on Twitter as @AbhishekCTRL.